“The extension of the art of dwelling is the art of living – living in harmony with man’s deepest drives and with his adopted or fabricated environment.”
-from designboom.com
so(hot)right(now)
life or something like it
Therese Rawsthorne’s Twin Peaks moment
Stunning show from Therese Rawsthorne at Australian Fashion Week. Not sure what I loved more; the flashes of colour, the beautiful prints, the great hair & make up, the excellent back-gathered pink pants, the orchids as fasteners, or the awesome Twin Peaks theme: complete with log lady and cherry pie.
Romance Was Born at the State Library of NSW
Amazing show at the Mitchell Library kicks off Sydney fashion week for 2011. Complete with orchestra and children’s choir performing the theme from the Neverending Story… magical.
Antwerp Cathedral. Belgium.
Call me old fashioned, but I love visiting a cathedral.
However secular a culture may be, their religious institutions contain traces of the fundamental values that colour a society. In the case of the Antwerp Cathedral, it spoke to me of a hertiage rich with experimentation and adoption, open-minded, acquistive, and inquisitive.
There’s a richness of colour, and playfulness with pattern and design that is unique among the many I’ve visited in Europe. There’s a lovely record of the layers of occupations and style. Heraldic identity is strong, and somehow there is a sense of independence from Catholic dogma.
Bilinguals see the world in a different way, study suggests
Learning a foreign language literally changes the way we see the world, according to new research. Panos Athanasopoulos, of Newcastle University, has found that bilingual speakers think differently to those who only use one language.
Colour perception is an ideal way of testing bilingual concepts because there is a huge variation between where different languages place boundaries on the colour spectrum.
In Japanese, for example, there are additional basic terms for light blue (mizuiro) and dark blue (ao) which are not found in English.
“As well as learning vocabulary and grammar you’re also unconsciously learning a whole new way of seeing the world,” said Dr Athanasopoulos. “There’s an inextricable link between language, culture and cognition.
“It can also enable you to understand your own language better and gives you the opportunity to reflect on your own culture, added Dr Athanasopoulos, who speaks both Greek and English.
- from >a href=”http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110314132531.htm”>Science Daily
I Wish This Was: Candy Chang’s stickers inspire community engagement in New Orleans
Candy Chang is a public installation artist, designer, and urban planner who likes to make cities more comfortable for people. She’s also a 2011 TED Fellow and will be at the mythic conference this week to talk about I Wish This Was, her endearingly low-tech community engagement project.
Chang believes that public space can better serve the people who live, work, and play in them. Cities like New Orleans, where she lives, are filled with abandoned buildings, empty storefronts, vacant lots, and people who need things, but are devoid of the most basic necessities like grocery stores. So Chang came up with the project, ideal for its super low barrier of entry, to allow her fellow citizens to offer their ideas. The responses, which run the gamut from Disneyland to a bike rack, heaven to an art supply store, reflect, says Chang,”the hopes, dreams, and colorful imaginations of different neighborhoods.”
- from good.is
Social enterprise + renewable resources = Bambike
- from bambike.com
Bryan McClelland has created the BamBike, a bicycle made out of bamboo, made by local artisans in the Phillipines.
Rapidly-regenerating bamboo crops are one of the best renewable resources in the world. They’re getting ready to ship internationally this year, so start saving now, and get ready to see a new kind of fixie appearing on your block…
tweeting- jessaroo: RT @Colvinius: This article on the "myth" of American Decline is alleged to have influenced Obama's SOTU speech: http://t.co/d4Rst4Q1
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